Tuesday, March 30, 2010

I was lacking creative juices this morning... so we went with something simple :)

I wrote a few letters on construction paper and placed it on our activity tray. I gave Dod his cup of cheerios and showed him how he could line the cheerios up to "write" letters. Rather than letters, I just should have written out the phrase - "this is totally not going to work" - can you figure out how this worked out? Yeah, the picture is not of Dodson putting down the cheerios onto the letters, but him eating the examples I put down. He's NOT in the mood for working his fine motor skills, but for eating - plain and simple. Some mornings are just like that, though :)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

This morning we had our weekly "preschool" at my house. We have friends from our play group over and have "school". I wanted to serve a snack, and I wanted Dodson to help prepare the snack for his friends. We decided to make peanut butter banana popsicles! It was so fun. We used a package (by Concord Foods) of peanut butter sauce and simply followed directions on the box.

I knew Dodson would love helping put the bananas on sticks and dipping them into a glass of peanut butter sauce, and he proved me right! We did them this morning, and they were done by the time everyone arrived- a great mid morning snack! It helped Dodson learn the meaning of being a "southern gentleman" by preparing snacks for his friends :)

We pre-froze the bananas w/ the stick for an hour before we mixed/melted the peanut butter. Once we were ready w/ frozen banans, we warmed water in the kettle and poured it in a mixing cup and placed the packet in it, which melted the peanut butter - it stayed in there for 4 minutes.

Once the peanut butter was warm, we poured it into a glass and Dodson dipped the bananas into the sauce. It coated them perfectly!

Finished product... Yummy, healthy snack for our guests!!!

Some peanut butter dripped onto Dodson's clothes... oh, great, it's just his PJ's - time to throw them in the wash and get dressed for "school"

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Do you like to find new ideas to do with your child/children? Do you also like to find other moms to connect with that have the same love of teaching that you do? If so, then head over to We Teach and you will find both! Amy, who has an AWESOME blog called TeachMama (see link in right hand corner), is so talented, and so creative, and so everything!!! She has created this great group on Ning Network where moms and teachers can share their ideas. There are ideas for pretty much everything - teaching reading, teaching the alphabet, teaching science and math, doing crafts, blogging...
Take a moment and join this group - if you at all like Pajama Projects, you will LOVE this group!

Hope you are in your pajamas by now and that you had a great day with your little ones!

This morning we went outside. YES, in our pajamas. Oh, come on, you've NEVER done that??? It was our back yard and nobody had to know - except for all of you ;)
I decided to write a few letters on a poster board and place it at the base of his slide. He perched at the top of the slide with all of his cars - ready to send them flying. He sent the cars down the slide one by one, and we guessed, or yelled out, which letter we thought it would land on. Then we'd discuss how close we were, or how far away from our target we were. Then we would count up "points" (which were written by each letter - randomly chosen) if it landed on a letter. It was a fun way to go over some of the letters that might be hard to remember - or those that look similar, or have similar sounds.

Variation= if your child has mastered their ABCs by sight, but are working on letter sounds, you could put a piece of masking tape over the roof of each car and write a letter on it. Then fill your poster board squares with magazine pictures of items that begin with that letter. Talk about where the car "should land" and which picture the child should aim for. If it lands on the correct picture, great - you get points; if it lands on another picture, but the child can tell you what letter should have been on the car for that picture, they get half the points! So fun!!!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

This morning we pulled out one of Dodson's favorite "store bought" games. I do agree that it is an awesome one! It is the Thomas and friends ABC puzzle. Click HERE to purchase.

The child matches the letter to the matching word piece. He loves finding a match and fitting the pieces together! I love that he is getting in some letter practice with out even realizing he's learning!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Today, in honor of St. Patty's day we worked on counting with clovers. I made a simple little game out of cut out clovers- 3 leaf and 4 leaf. We counted each clovers leaves and put it into an appropriate pile. This used counting skills, organizational skills and sorting skills.

Then we went on a little hunt around the kitchen and den. I hid the clovers, and he found them. He has continued to find them throughout the day today.

He liked the game so much we are going to play again this afternoon- I am going to tape a treat onto each 4 leaf clover, to make it extra special this time!
For older kids who are working on spelling, you could write one letter on the back of each clover using the letter to spell out "happy st. patty's day". They could have to arrange the letters to build words and then a sentence.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I have been wondering when, exactly, a toddler is supposed to dress themselves. I don't want him to grow up too fast, so I'm still enjoying dressing him- but I kinda can't wait for him to put on rain boots, his superman costume and a cowboy hat and insist he goes to school that way... until then, I will continue to put him in his little matching outfits!
Today though, I wanted to talk to him about "getting dressed". I'd really like to get him some of those montessori dressing forms for him to practice on (ohhh... maybe we will make them ourselves- another pajama project for another day!)
To discuss clothing items, we got out Dodson's Melissa and Doug magnetic joey dress up doll ( to buy your joey dress up toy click here )
He loves this "doll" and plays with it often- much more than I ever imagined (they have girl versions too).
I quickly pulled out paper and drew a picture of the clothing items in the game. Shirts, Pants, Boots, and Hats... then he could sort the pieces by type and then he could dress Joey in MATCHING clothes to make "outfits"... we talked about how silly he looked with a pirate hat while wearing police officer clothes. It was a fun way to talk about proper ways to dress and silly combos, and how sometimes we can be silly! Speaking of getting dressed... we need to do that around here...Thanks for joining us on todays pajama project!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

That's right... GREEN! No, we aren't washing any less clothes, just do a hunt for the color green. Sorry to disappoint. Trust me, there is nothing I would love more than to do less wash! That's not what's happening though - so, as the clothes tumble in the wash, we are using Dodson's shopping cart and in honor of March, we started looking for green things from around the house to look for. We had a blast. He loved picking items up and saying "Green, no, not green - this red - I love red."
It was a simple little project, or game, but it made for a fun morning! Try it, its fun!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Today is Dr. Seuss' Birthday! Yay... we love Seuss! To celebrate, we decided to make a cat in the hat counting hat. This skill is perfect for those learning those first few numbers: counting numbers and putting them in order. You and your child can discuss concepts such as smallest to largest, patterning (red, white, red white, What comes next?), sorting the numbers (in order, lowest to highest, highest to lowest) all while making a fun Dr. Seuss hat at the same time! Here's all you will need...

I put Dodson's hand in the scissors and I put my hand over his and cut- this will help him get the feel for cutting. We cut each number stripe apart. Then I drew a hat shape onto the red paper and cut it out. I mixed up the number strips on the tray and asked Dodson to point to specific numbers. After he found each, and counted the dots, we would glue them and put them onto the hat. We were sure to leave space between the strips in order to make stripes (that is a tongue twister- Dr. Seuss would be proud)

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Welcome to Pajama Projects...

I am a lucky girl!!! I get to stay home with my sweet little boy and play with glue, glitter, paint, cars, dinosaurs, fire trucks, building blocks and the like! I am a former teacher, with my masters in Early Childhood Education and I can't seem to pull myself away from the classroom. I truly love teaching, and what a better way to do it than right here in my home, with my little man, cozy in our pajamas! Thanks for stopping in and I hope you can find some fun ideas to share with your little ones as well! Now, get cozy, don't dress up for us :)